Perhaps 'purify' is a better image than 'purgative'

Yesterday was the RC observance of the feast of the Benedictine Anselm (Archbishop of Canterbury in the 11th century, of blessed memory.) Here is a quote which I found very appealing: "Lord my God, you gave me life and restored it when I lost it. Tell my soul that so longs for you what else you are besides what it has already understood, so that it may see you clearly... apart from what it has seen already, it sees nothing but darkness. Of course, it does not really seek darkness, because there is no darkness in you, but it sees that it can see no further because of the darkness in itself. Surely, Lord, inaccessible light is your dwelling place, for no one apart from yourself can enter into it and fully comprehend you. If I fail to see this light, it is simply because it is too bright for me. Still, it is by this light that I do see all that I can, even as weak eyes, unable to look straight at the sun, see all that they can by the sun's light.... O God, let me know and love you so that I may find my joy in you; and if I cannot do so fully in this life, let me at least make some progress every day, until at last that knowledge, love, and joy come to me in their plenitude. While I am here on earth, let me learn to know you better, so that in heaven I may know you fully; let my love for you grow deeper here, so that there I may love you fully. On earth, then, I shall have great joy in hope, and in heaven complete joy in the fulfilment of my hope."

Coincidentally, and this the very week after I aired my irritation about "Divine Mercy" (see previous post - I don't mean divine mercy), I stumbled upon an old RC prayer book yesterday. Heavens, did it bring back memories - and I don't mean only those which move me to tears, of which admittedly there were more than a few. A number of devotions begged 'give me my purgatory here on earth' (because apparently there was good authority that the punishments God inflicts after we are dead are worse still than what we have here... and, though there is suffering in all lives, I am shuddering at the thought of the hell on earth many have... and trembling the more at the horrid idea that God sends them.)

In volume four of my books on the spiritual life (which do not exist - it's a little literary licence, more a joke), I "began" with a great truth: In successfully draining the swamp, one must accept the inevitable point of being up to one's arse in alligators. Those of us who don't, for example, spend evenings with those such as Anselm (...slight pause for some of my more irritable readers to say 'get a life!,' since they may not realise that this is precisely what some of us are seeking), may picture 'sin' as being either heinous crimes or something worthy of News of the World - fortunately, most of the world's population have never had any inclination to the former, and would view the latter with either a mere sigh or envy. Yet anyone who pursues the spiritual life, in whatever form (since we follow God as precisely what is real for the individual), inevitably will have some times of major conversion. In fact, all too often those of us who are very devout are in deep water now and then, because, until we feel that nip from the alligators, our self deception convinces us that our worst traits are virtues.

(Cheer up - though one shall always have those exasperating traits, they aren't only forgiven but sometimes are the flip side of what will become one's strengths.)

Classically, the 'three stages' of growth in prayer had the 'purgative' as the first. Considering that the alligators above filled my quota of earthiness for one day, I'm not about to draw any vivid pictures of what might come to mind with the word 'purgative'... though honestly forces me to admit that whatever images came are all too true an analogy for what it is like to grow past the ... ah, inward deception. Pleasant it isn't. It does not matter that God has forgiven us, and that we do not need to placate him or appease anger (since he had none in the first place). We have spiritual damage from our major errors, and the time of recovery is blessed, joyous - but painful.

However, I really loathe that 'purgatory on earth' business - it was mentioned in many prayers in my youth, and indeed some private revelation or another, I cannot recall which, gave the reassuring promise that one would have purgatory here. (Yes, I know about Augustine's punishment as remedy, but he had odd ways of defending the concept of omnipotence. Deep down, Augustine was a bigger idealist than I am - always pining for paradise, though his illustration of what specific control that would have involved makes my alligators seem rather tame.) It presents an image of a God of punishment, fear, appeasement.

Anselm, in the quotation above, shows a far brighter image. If anyone still promotes 'purgatory on earth', may I recommend one substitute the word 'purification,' which, after all, is what purgatory is in the first place.

Purify me on this earth, so that I'm stripped of my blindness, which keeps me from loving God and neighbour. Purify me, so such virtues as I have become a source of joy and love for myself and those with whom I deal. Develop this as you wish - but is it not a better image than a God who sends suffering?

Jesus' own suffering is a powerful and important image for us, because it underlines how fully one who is God accepted the fullness of being human. He remained steadfast in his vocation as prophet, healer, and one who offered a message of reconciliation to outcasts - and, when this led to conflicts with the Establishment, in the ultimate irony of creation the Son of God and Second Person of the Trinity would be condemned to death for blasphemy. (In case this wasn't obvious, I think that I first fell in love with Him because he wasn't tender to the Establishment...) In the course of his Passion, and throughout his ministry to a lesser extent, Jesus experienced the full scope of human pain. But it was humans who rejected and punished Jesus of Nazareth. The triumph, not the horror, was the Father's will - the resurrection that miracle which it took divine power to bring about, since we mortals sadly can handle betrayal, abandonment of a friend, torture, death, and the like very well on our own. It wasn't that God the Father looked down from heaven on his Son and pushed a button, "Yo! Judas! Caiaphas! Pilate! I've got an execution for you to handle this week..."

This is rather a silly entry, I know - crude versions of purgatory are not in vogue in any camp, to my knowledge. Yet many of us first were introduced to Christianity as little children and, providential though that was, we were still at a stage of development where most of what we did was focussed on pleasing those in authority, or avoiding punishment (how could a tiny child understand virtue?), or not getting caught. Forgive me the lack of political correctness, but little children, who have no understanding of danger and the like, probably don't jump into the lake because they know they'll be smacked. We wouldn't get very far in our maturity, in any area of life, if fear of punishment in some way was our motivation (though some Internet groups I've visited show me that, indeed, many adults are 'motivated' only by fear of abuse.) Why must we not only ignore God's call to maturity, but turn him into a punishing Father?

Looked for the Master - got his office junior...

Christ is Risen!

Since I like to attend a daily Eucharist, and therefore will take it where I can, I sometimes attend a small church (which shall remain nameless, since there are many fine comments I can make – but others not quite so laudatory), which has multiple celebrations each weekday. At that church this morning, I heard one of those sermons that would be utterly hilarious were it not so unfortunate on other levels, and to which I’ll refer in a moment.

To begin, and this to my amazement and disappointment, two very large pictures, one of “The Divine Mercy,” the other of its recipient Sister Faustina (who appeared to be holding our Saviour in her hand), were in the sanctuary, nearly obscuring the view of the altar. Granted – the altar had enough lilies to rate an exhibit at the Chelsea flower show, but I dislike anything obstructing one’s emphasis on the resurrection. It always did seem to me, as well, that having a feast to commemorate a private revelation about ‘divine mercy,’ the Sunday following Holy Week and Easter, is rather like taking a solid gold cross and gilding it with the paint kids used to use on their ballet shoes for recitals.

It is not that I disapprove of private devotions – not in the least, even if we apophatic sorts are not likely to be able to indulge in them wholeheartedly (and I say that with some regret, envying my mother’s childlike trust as she chatted with the Infant of Prague or Saint Anthony.) Yet I am much more one for deification than (the usual views of) atonement, and I see purgatory as life and growth extending beyond this earth – an intimacy with God, burning with white-hot love, which ever increases – knowledge ever growing and never complete because the fullness of the divine nature is glorious beyond our comprehension. One must admit, as well, that even the most rock-ribbed versions of atonement still concede that, if death was the punishment for sin, Christ Himself paid the penalty. I see God as continually extending his creative, totally loving power – not forcing our love in return, since love requires freedom, but hardly as a judge who has to be begged for pardons.

I have a feeling that, in recounting details of this sermon (which are just as they were spoken, not including any of my personal irony), my readers will understand why I sighed even more than I did when I saw the pictures of a private revelation drawing more attention than the risen Christ.

Here are the highlights: Sister Faustina is Christ’s secretary (yes, that’s exactly what the aged priest said), second in rank only to the Blessed Mother who normally is a source of revelation. (I would have said that Mary most definitely and gloriously received a revelation or two, which became much clearer in light of the resurrection… her being source of revelation is a bit off… she was tabernacle of the most High but hardly spokesman..) Faustina (a native of Poland) received the revelation (and propagated the word about the novena, from Good Friday to Low Sunday, which gives one a chance to never spend time in purgatory), but originally Rome would not give approval to the devotion. Then, lo and behold, God, who always works out his purposes, had John Paul II elected, and this Polish native approved the divine mercy novena. (With so many of my studies centring on the medieval and renaissance periods, I never was one to assume that God hand picks popes, even the exemplary John Paul. The Almighty certainly went to a huge amount of trouble to select one from Poland entirely for approval of a divine mercy devotion... and John Paul certainly deserves to be remembered for more than that...) So, we have one of two chances each year (the other wasn’t specified) to have no time in purgatory! He also recommended that, if one had not begun the novena on Good Friday as is usual (…why do I doubt that any recent pope would have wanted novenas, rather than a few other pursuits of worship which come to mind, to be on anyone’s mind during the Triduum?), one could still get in the required prayers by saying them nine times between now and next Sunday.

This sermon, incidentally, also mentioned that Catholics alone see Jesus with his 'heart outside,' courtesy of Margaret Mary's revelation, where all other Christians have his heart hidden. (Last week, I was thinking of its being pierced with a lance... but let's not get too literal remembering undying love.) Get me another gin...

My friends, I attended some wonderful services this past week, and had all sorts of lofty ideas about the resurrection. I suppose my mentioning the worst sermon of the lot is a combination of my inherent snobbery and a sigh. It seems to me that there is a line in the liturgy somewhere not only about the felix culpa, but about how God created human nature and still more wonderfully restored it – and I’m also thinking of words about how Jesus took on our nature that it might be glorified. Is Easter week, of all times (if, indeed, any time is appropriate – though I’ll give you one free serve during All Souls’ week), a time to be begging our way out of a future purgatory (which undoubtedly resembles something Dante Alighieri cooked up, perhaps minus the political overtones)?

John Paul II was a great pope, though I daresay that his encyclical on Divine Mercy, which the preacher mentioned this morning, had a bit more to it than endorsement of a novena. However, if anyone wants some really marvellous reading for the Easter season (or any other time), I’d heartily recommend Pope Benedict’s “Eschatology.” I’m tempted to add that, unlike the hokey cokey, eschatology is what it’s all about…

From the sublime to the ridiculous: virtue and vice

I shall caution my readers that the heading to this entry does not imply that sublime or ridiculous are adjectives to be taken as modifiers of 'virtue' and 'vice'. :) It is true that my frozen brain will not be at its best till a spring thaw, but I know I'm on the verge of writing of some quite sublime concepts with ridiculous examples. Consider it the legacy of Franciscan jesters for the past seven centuries. The threads I'm ravelling here were prompted by a presentation I attended yesterday (by a theologian whom I regard highly overall, I must add) which dealt with Thomas Aquinas' treatment of virtue, vice, and that grey area in between where most of us dwell. It's a great topic - I love how Thomas is so totally positive about creation and humanity in particular, and stresses the goodness inherent in us and our natural inclination to turn towards Perfect Love however much we may fall short of this. (For Thomas, even grave wickedness is a failure to fulfil a potential for sanctity.) However, as I shall get to a little later, the illustrations were idiotic. I remembered how my father, no theologian but sometimes an apt observer of human nature, used to speak of "book learning, but not the ways of the world," or of "the smarter you make them, the dumber they get." Of course, I know to whom he usually was referring (maybe it's obvious), so it is heartening if concurrently discouraging when I observe that there are those with far more intelligence and learning than I who are capable of being 'dumber' (in Sam's sense) than I am at my worst.

Permit me to present a 'prelude' of loose associations. A dear friend of mine, now deceased, was a priest, friar, and moral theologian. He had been a professor of that subject, and had much experience with confession and retreat work as well as with the theoretical. I remember mentioning to him once that refraining from doing wrong (or doing what is 'right') when one is only thinking of natural consequences hardly was a practise of virtue. "Of course it isn't," he replied, but, after a very deep West of Ireland sigh (half sigh, half hum), he muttered, "The only thing that can separate anyone from sanctifying grace is mortal sin - so you try to keep them from doing it any way you can!"

I, of course, have no notion of what it is to be a confessor - Tom used to tell me that he thought his Purgatory would be to have to hear endless confessions of (his expression, not mine!) "Irish women who eat the candles off the altar, because they tell you everything except what they need to and about everyone's sins but their own." I can remain smug in the theoretical - far from holy, I'll admit with candour if regret, but very comfortable with the writings of the holy. Indeed, we are children of God - and children we often are, not only in some lovely concept of adoption but in our very immature ways of approaching sin and virtue. We do this, or don't do that, because we might get caught - or it might have consequences (other than the spiritual... we don't think of those consequences unless we're recovering from grave sins of our own that we've ignored and justified, which leave us - no, not bound for hell! but - so debilitated that we can barely see the great grace that is healing us afterwards.)

Most of us, in childhood (when we were far from being able to grasp, for example, that lying is injustice, or that stealing shows no respect for others' possessions - things along those lines), were given an idea of 'sin' based on 'obedience.' I'm an anarchist at heart, and obedience is not something I normally ponder - unless I'm considering adherence to the wisdom of the ages, tested for millennia, and, of course, recorded and expounded upon by great saints (or consensus at ecumenical councils and such, where considering centuries of tradition compensates for the lack of holiness of participants) who conveniently are long dead and therefore not likely to give me orders any time soon. Obedience, to rules, authority and so forth, is probably the only way a small child can become acquainted with right and wrong - they do not have an inkling of virtue, and, even though they are just as inclined to sin as the rest of us, they don't have the use of reason and will yet which would make them full fledged sinners. It's a beginning - but it can only take us so far. Not doing something because one will be kept after school or smacked may at least keep one from wrong doing (...when it doesn't make one adept at not being caught or, far worse, managing to place the blame on the innocent), but it contains no concept of virtue.

Yet there is an 'obedience' I esteem (...if from afar.) The root audire means 'to listen.' That's not a bad idea when one cherishes the relationship with God and his Mystical Body (us) - the more because the God who 'saw that it was good' said "let there be..." light, water, humanity. Whatever the Israelites borrowed from Canaan or Persia, Yahweh was distinguished from the local gods. He spoke - revealed himself, let us be in his image - letting that image be immanent representation of his own transcendent nature, long before the Incarnation made this image perfect.

Thomas stressed grasping God as the ultimate good - and our will, choosing, loving. Love cannot be based on "do as I say or you are in big trouble." (My own view of most authority, I must add - I'm a total cynic in the area, because we usually need to bow to authority, in adulthood, merely for the sake of a roof over our heads. Such an approach to God is tragic.) Thomas also saw us as constantly longing for that union with God.

In a nutshell - the truly virtuous have grown in their love of God to a point where, for example, their sense of charity and justice is so finely tuned that, even if they make mistakes as much as the rest, they will not violate those virtues. Most of us fall into an in-between area, where we may do 'right' often enough, but it isn't so instilled in our nature. As for vice - those hardened in sin to that point are going against their entire created nature. Despite any amount of grace, they are totally self absorbed, relishing their own power, enjoying the pain of those whom they control.

Now, back to yesterday's presentation. The idea of the 'virtuous, continent, (pause for giggles) incontinent, and vicious' was illustrated by... that the vicious would eat an ice cream sundae even knowing it was bad, without caring, and the virtuous would not even have the inclination. Considering the degree of learning on the part of the speaker, this has to rank with one of the dumbest examples on the planet!

I've long wanted to be the first Franciscan woman canonised as a doctor - maybe I'll qualify because I don't eat sweets. But, sadly, I'm afraid the reasons I do not have nothing to do with virtue. (Whether one eats ice cream, incidentally, has nothing whatever to do with sin or virtue.) One reason is morally neutral. There's something odd in my system where certain foods, sweets among them, greatly stimulate my appetite and cause cravings. I don't abstain because of my sanctity, but because I don't need the physical distress and obsession with hunger which would result. My other reason is not exactly sinful but certainly is a distraction to my prayer and other Christian practise much of the time. I've battled a weight problem since the age of 8, am extremely concerned about my appearance (there - I was humble enough to admit that it isn't health that prompts this - I've never been a light year within being a beauty, but I don't want to be poster girl for the 'obesity epidemic'), and refrain from all sweets just as I would from, let us say, sexually explicit books or films... I don't want to start what I can't finish (or what I indeed can finish but only with huge regret, and I assure you I could easily finish at least five ice cream sundaes once I got started.) I always have to be wary of the sin of idolatry - because I often am distracted, to a point of obsession at times, by worshipping at the altar of weight loss rather than that of the true God.

As long as I'm on this 'ice cream' thing (and I'm sure it was no coincidence that such a silly illustration, which has no relation at all to Thomas' treatment of any stage of temperance, was delivered by a very thin man who rather resembles a carved statue of some ancient, bearded ascetic with a dour expression), I'll add one little word about classic views of gluttony. (Surprise - eating is not evil!) Most treatments of gluttony, including Thomas', dealt with drunkenness. (No unkindness to alcoholics is intended here- the nature of that illness was not known until very recently.) The horror of gluttony (being dead drunk) was that it deprived one of reason and will. One could commit horrid acts (Thomas speaks of incest, rape, and murder in an example), which never would have happened had one not been drunk.

Gluttony, like any 'capital sin,' could be a serious matter if it meant negligence of responsibilities, focussing entirely on the pleasures of the table and not love for God or neighbour, cruelty to those who harvest the food because one values the table more than the labourer. But it does not consist in eating an ice cream - or in not living according to whatever 'new food pyramid' is fashionable at the moment. If those on Internet forums to discuss food (those focussed on 'health' can be the most obsessive) spent one tenth of the time they do there on prayer or good works, I think the only things wrong with this planet (except perhaps global warming... in which this past winter has increased my disbelief...) would, as usual, be the doings of the truly vicious.

So - my benediction for today. May all of us so strive for the love of which Thomas spoke, and so rejoice in the goodness by which and for which we were created, and be so thankful for all of creation that we are thankful in our use of any part of it, that the worst of vices is someone enjoying a sundae... (And I certainly hope that, unless ice cream affects you in some adverse fashion, as it does me, that you have a healthy helping of it daily throughout the Easter season. Fasts are worthwhile only when they are accompanied by feasts.)

Eleventh commandment: Thou shalt not be a busybody!

The link in the title to this post is to an entry in another blog, which bears the apt title of "Today's Nonsense." Apparently there is a government initiative to develop a corps of busybodies to aggravate everyone, including strangers, in all public places. Heavens, I can only imagine how many people will jump at the chance to feel important and meddle (though it is a volunteer assignment.) As an aside, though I rather like the blog to which I linked, the title of the blog itself, "Comfort Eater's Diet," which I assume is ironic, in itself would inspire many a busybody to badger anyone whom they assume meets the popular stereotype of the pathetic neurotic 'turning to comfort foods.'

In my experience, busybodies come in every variety - every level of intelligence or education, every class and background - and their common ground is in both a highly excessive estimation of their own wisdom and importance, and their assumption that everyone else not only is their inferior but is eagerly awaiting their wisdom. Of course, anyone who is genuinely trying to help others can make mistakes, be imprudent, or be considered as (sigh... I hate trendy talk and I intend this to be said with lifted eyebrows...) 'violating boundaries' today, but there is a key difference between the isolated errors of those genuinely seeking to be loving and busybodies. Busybodies are playing ego games, seeking superiority and not even seeing the implicit condescension.

Lord knows I've met my share of the breed, and members of that set are the most exasperating people on earth. I can think of a few who were 'outstanding' - one whom I knew who criticised everyone's speech, appearance, tastes, whatever, with the clear attitude that she (and her mother) were the only people on earth who knew the right way to do things, and that their mission was to instruct the pathetic masses (anyone other than themselves.) Another, who thought herself to be the ultimate intellectual, could not go without nagging for half an hour, and would phone people multiple times each day to tell them to do things to which they'd already given a 'no,' or go on at length to advise them against doing things they never had considered doing in the first place.

Sometimes, approaches such as these would have been comical had they not been so irritating. When I was a young musician, I remember another member of a theatre company, Carol, who had the most... excessive self-esteem of probably anyone I have ever known (and this in a field where egos and desires for attention are hardly a rarity. Carol was a secretary by profession, but had some background in music, and I don't doubt she'd have approached Tebaldi with criticisms and suggestions, always beginning with her trademark, "we have to get together...", which invariably preceded a statement of what the other was doing wrong and how she had the solution.)

Carol thought of herself as the ultimate glamour girl - where she actually verged on the pathetic. Though it was the late 1970s when Carol began including me in her 'we have to get together' (...no chance of that, fusspot...), she still had her hair, make-up and the like in styles, outdated for at least a decade, which so obviously were intended to copy Elizabeth Taylor in Cleopatra that it was hilarious. Carol regularly approached plain Janes (everyone except herself - particularly since this wasn't an era when too many women were still trying to look like Cleopatra) with "I've been looking at you, and I've decided..." (This was followed by what she thought one should do in the way of hair, make-up and the like.) I did have the good taste not to tell her that I had no desire to look as if I'd been made up by the undertaker (Carol would put on lipstick as she entered a room, then put on another layer above that two minutes later... one guy commented that anyone who kissed her must have thought he was snogging with a candle...). Yet, when she 'decided' that I should 'go back to my (horrid) natural hair colour to look younger' (this though neither one of us was within decades of when anyone would have that aim or concern), I'll admit that I responded that I had 'decided' that she should mind her own business - and I modified 'business' with an adjective too vulgar to use on the Internet, which is normally out of character for me.

I wore about a size 16 at the time, which naturally meant that every woman who wanted applause for being any smaller than I am was 'concerned about my health,' recommending black clothing, girdles, Weight Watchers, and so forth... though how wearing black or a girdle benefits health is beyond me. Carol was easily a size 24, so I would say that the chances that anyone saw her as a glamour girl and hoped to imitate her were slender.

Nonetheless, for all that busybodies irritate me to an extent that even heretics, those with arch conservative politics, and other people far on the other end of the circle from me do, I shall concede that certain religious teachings indeed could push those who, deep down, genuinely want to be loving into busybody mode. It was not a matter of doctrine, but of exhortation - the devout who attended retreats, heard or read conferences about practising charity in little things, were trained as greeters in churches, became involved with group programmes, whatever, were exposed to far too great an emphasis on example.

I remember a lovely couple I knew, in my age group, who were very involved with all sorts of 'marriage enrichment' programmes (natural family planning, marriage preparation, retreats for couples). It took a while for me to discover that, in their preparation for this work, they'd been encouraged to find reasons to bring these things up all of the time. Until then, though I was quite fond of them, I wondered if they might not just have badges made that said "Ask us about our perfect marriage," just to save time. Breastfeeding was not yet a universal obligation then, and there was some RC organisation that gave it a religious flavour, and I could set my clock by the female member of the couple... at any parish gathering, wait till the room was full, count out five minutes, and it was time for her to start pulling up her top...

One girl who attended the same college with me, again a very good sort, was involved in campus ministry programmes. If, let us say, a retreat was approaching, she hounded others to attend. Let someone say "I will be away that weekend," and she'd be 'on their case' with "is that the only reason?" She'd pester those who were attending if their siblings or friends were not. I'm sure she either thought these gatherings would be beneficial or wanted to rake up the biggest total to show what an organiser she was - but she just could not accept a 'no'!

Those from Catholic traditions (in which I do not only include the Roman variety) normally did not see themselves as having an obligation to push others to become Christians - there is no concept of 'baptised or damned.' I would say, at least since the Counter-Reformation and more since the French revolution, the emphasis (again, with stress on 'example') was on getting Catholics who weren't practising to become involved in the Church. This is a fine aim, of course, but one thing that the devout seldom can grasp is that (1) some people just aren't interested in church-going and (2) those who came from homes where their parents set the most avid 'examples' often are more than happy to be free of this.

One mega-busybody, whom I had not seen in years, contacted me some months ago. (The worst feature of the Internet is that one will hear from whichever figure from the past one wishes to hear from least.) Apparently she does not read most of the blog, which I hardly would consider dismal, but focussed on that, in one post (which was actually primarily about an author!), I'd referenced my convent days as an illustration. This, supposedly, was 'destroying all the good in me.' So, at risk of hearing from this pest again, I shall (gasp!) present a 'convent example' because I see it as illustrating how the idea of example can get out of hand.

Francis had placed a provision in the rule that, in any case of discord between the friars, they should 'immediately and humbly ask pardon of the other.' In our particular congregation, that had been more formalised. It was customary, if another started or involved one in a row, and later made an apology, to respond with "and I am sorry that I provoked you."

This, in a setting where all understand the custom, and the underlying humility and charity it is supposed to demonstrate (...even when the actual feelings may be smug and self-righteous...), is not intended to be unhealthy, even if it probably is. There are no implications of "I deserve to have you mistreat me - I think I am worth no better - I am to blame for what you did" or anything of the sort. Anyway, both people involved in the argument would have had to accuse themselves to the superior, and the verdict was highly unlikely to be 'not guilty' for either. (I once was penanced to three days of silence - probably the most appropriate penance in the Order's 700 year history.)

Unfortunately, when we are 'raised' with such customs and may grudgingly admit they can be useful, we can forget that there are characters on this earth who would not be edified by the example of humility and charity we're hoping we are presenting. (It was a big year for edification... I doubt we even realised the implicit condescension in our having to 'edify' our parents when we wrote them or they visited, as if the good and dedicated people who'd raised us needed their daughters' help to rescue them from their failings.) :) I well remember when one of the less pleasant people with whom I dealt, and whom I had in no way wronged, felt I'd offended her. Most fortunately, one of the friars (the one who told a man en route to rehab that, if he returned before his treatment was complete, said friar would 'break his fucking legs'... the treatment was successful) intercepted the message I nearly sent. "I am sorry I provoked you," if directed to the individual I mentioned, would only have been taken as further proof of weakness and a capacity for manipulation.

Admittedly, there are other times when we must have seemed a prissy little crop of snobs. (I was more intelligent and educated than the others - which is not saying much - so I came across as a cheeky and proud snob, which at the time was perfectly true.) Our community had retained most of the 'old ways' in an era when many congregations were modernising (is that a word?), some becoming quite secular. I suppose that the lowered eyes and demeanour as if we were sterile and feared someone would touch and contaminate us were taught to us in order that we not glance up and see modern touches that would be appealing. But, of course, that was never disclosed. No, our manner was supposed to demonstrate that we were 'recollected,' and therefore provide edification for these 'wicked' modern nuns who turned up at inter-community functions.

Forgive us - anyone who'd act 'edifying,' or concentrate on 'setting a good example,' to her own mother and father is temporarily beyond hope. ;) We also were too insular to realise that, had anyone actually stopped to consider how we lived, it would have been seen as pathetic (all the money she could make... she could still catch a man...) rather than edifying. But, fortunately, no one is likely to be looking to another for example in any case.

My own rule: Be there if someone really wants to share a confidence, though it is unlikely one can really do anything other than listen. (Often, just having a caring, non judgemental ear is a great blessing. The person who shares pain will be glad not to have her head bitten off with 'you're feeling sorry for yourself!,' or a smug response from a busybody who 'doesn't let things bother her,' even if her constant meddling makes it plain that everyone and everything indeed does bother her.) Always stop to think, for at least a day or two if not till eternity, of whether you do want to help another or just want to convince yourself you are superior. Never forget that fear can cripple us - we may tear apart, for example, the person who had a job loss or bankruptcy because we dearly want to believe it could not happen to us. If one believes one is 'concerned about health,' one must ponder very seriously if this is not just an excuse for an ego game. Don't only let one's own yeas be yea and nays be nay - accept that others have a right to both responses.

Those Seven Last Words...

In case this was not obvious, there are very few topics, whether related to scriptures or general theology, about which I would not enjoy writing (or preaching, were the pulpit available to me.) Perhaps the only one at which I would flinch (and, even then, only if I had to speak about all of them in succession) would be the Seven Last Words of Jesus on the cross. With Holy Week approaching, I have some sympathy for clergy here and there who may be presenting this from 12-3 on Good Friday.

As usual during Lent, I've been using Raymond Brown's "Death of the Messiah" (and various Tom Wright works) for lectio. Brown's massive work, with its detailed analyses and references to commentaries old and new, is fascinating indeed - but, as far as the seven last words are concerned, the illustration of how many odd points of view (don't get me started on Anselm...) have become attached to them is amazing.

I know I'm saying the grass is green, but preparing an integrated meditation on the words (as opposed to their exceptional potential for use in musical settings) is a task only slightly less complex than parting the Red Sea. Of course, the various 'words' are from different gospels, with very different theological points and specific settings. Yet what more than the Passion of Christ has been a taking off point for meditations in the past? (That is an observation, not a criticism, since I often meditate on that myself... even if I always manage to then get a few days ahead... then forty, the fifty... never mind where I end up, since it's the last thing we all mention in the creed...)

What prayer, for example, could be more beautiful than "Father, forgive them, they know not what they do"? (Anyone who emails me to speak of how Christian concepts of forgiveness keep anyone from dealing with grief will get 40 years in purgatory - and don't think I'm not connected. Please recall both who uttered these words and where he was at the time.) Yet the patristic era had many pondering just who was forgiven, whether the punishment implicit in 'let his blood be on us and our children' made forgiveness at odds with the justice, whether the prayer of Jesus meant that Jerusalem, which had to be wiped out for being his place of execution, had a 'stay' for 70 years instead of getting it at once. Today, of course, there undoubtedly would be some hearer (of the "if there is a problem here, I caused it" school) who would protest "but forgiveness means we judged someone!" (On a level more personal than scholarly, I'll whisper that I think Jesus just may have meant all of us... but I'll not expound lest I get into a missive on how we never fully realise the implications of what we do.)

"Mother, behold thy Son..." This is a magnificent depiction of how, in Johannine theology which is always concerned with the eschatological, the presence of Jesus' mother and the beloved disciple are beyond the concerns of this world. Sadly, treatments of this one have gone from everything such as whether John lived nearby to recruiting speeches for sodalities.

The last word which could have the most powerful treatment of all (and even has pastoral potential...) is "Why have You forsaken me?" Oh, is this a tricky one! (Anselm related this to the divine wrath being satisfied... get me another gin, even if it is Lent.) To have Jesus really mean this is a bit too human. I suppose he not only has to be strictly quoting a psalm (and have all onlookers recall the ending of said psalm), but has to be referring to Israel (as the psalm is) and not to himself.

Recently, a priest of my acquaintance (perhaps as nice a man as one could hope to meet, and a dedicated vicar - but the worst preacher on the planet) was going on and on, not able to stick to any topic, because he kept saying "but I can't say that, because I now know (this)..." It took me a moment to realise just what this new development was - he'd always preached dreadfully (he's the same one who, months ago, spoke of how he hoped Martha was resting in heaven while Mary flipped hamburgers), but not being able to finish a sentence because he was diverted by new knowledge was hardly long-standing. I then recognised some of the diversions and their clear source - he'd over-dosed on Raymond E. Brown! (I personally would like to see Brown canonised as a doctor of the Church - but one cannot read his lengthy works unless one takes one's time.)

This is a rambling post... about a rambling topic I never would care to tackle. So, I ask a blessing on any of you who are preparing talks on the Seven Last Words!

Do this in memory of me

Christianity is very simple. All it requires is a memory and a vision; and, if you can get them, some bread, and wine, and water. - Kenneth Leech

Simplicity is hardly my strong point - yet my honest nature prompts me to further comment that the bread, wine, water, vision, and memory are perhaps the only universal factors which have united the Christian Church since its earliest days. (Well, all right ... I can develop an idea of the Church's going back to Adam... but let us save that for another day.) Looking back to a 'golden age' is a favourite pastime of everyone in every era, yet such have never existed.

I am not likely to call the Last Supper an actual celebration of the Eucharist - there can be no anamnesis of what has not yet happened. :) But I provide this 'annual reflection,' which I normally reserve for Holy Week, right now because I'm a bit lacking in mobility as I recover from a burn... My regulars will recognise the sentiments, but blogging for all of these years taught me what I already knew from being a student for a century - original ideas are rare, and I think Einstein was the last to have one. :)

One wonders what the apostles were like. (I am also a peasant, yet the intellectual snob in me turns up her nose at the thought of their not being able to grasp the simplest parables and that most of them smelled of fish...) When I was reading Luke yesterday, I had to smile, seeing how, right to the end, the apostles were tossing about the idea of who would have the highest place in the kingdom. Ah, yes, arguments about authority...

It is all too easy, particularly if one not only watches the scriptural epics and reads the 'Lives of Christ' of another time, and has been exposed to the 'see how these Christians love one another' myth, to picture twelve intense young men, in great awe at having been first to see the ritual which would sustain the Church until the parousia. Actually, what was present at the Last Supper was a prototype of another sort. :) I am sure that at least one traditionalist was frowning that Jesus had changed the form for the Pesach meal with all this "cup of my blood" business. Those who were either simple or highly observant would question why the Passover was anticipated a day early. (Well, at least, in that day, they were spared the irate vegetarian's protests about the lamb, and no one offered the cup would have irately commented, "But wine is a drug!") Judas was on verge of betraying the Master. I would imagine that Matthew was still sensitive about why Judas held the purse, considering all of his own experience as a tax collector. The disciples were conflicted about who would be the kingpins (I suppose when the Messiah toppled Roman rule.) "The Rock," who had learnt insufficient humility from that sad incident of attempting to walk on water, was making bold promises he'd soon find were beyond him. The lot of them would scatter in fear before the night was out.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Church.

Still, whenever I heard the words of consecration at the Eucharist, it moves me to think that the perpetual memorial has endured for two millenia. For all the conflict, persecution, quarrels, heresy, whatever, which the early Church faced, that bread, wine, and water was the catholic element - and these rituals of common worship kept the Church from crumbling when many a reform movement of the time would die out quickly enough. Jerusalem would fall - the Word would spread to Alexandria, Antioch, Rome, Gaul, etc., with Christians being the odd ones who conformed neither to Jewish nor pagan society.

All that was common, then or now, was worship - praise and thanksgiving - water, bread, and wine - the memory and vision, and the scriptures. We shall never accept that, of course. :) Till the end, I'm sure that those of us who are avid believers will think that some ideal of unity and love will prevail. Yes, at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow... but not everyone will be happy and grateful at that gesture. :)

Lord, you are holy indeed, and all creation rightly gives you praise. All life, all holiness, comes from you, through your Son, Jesus Christ Our Lord, by the working of the Holy Spirit. From age to age, you gather a people to yourself, so that from East to West a perfect offering may be made to the glory of your name...

Quavering a bit because I felt like a minim

...and it temporarily made me crotchety. I'm sure my readers will excuse a string of three terrible puns, but I'm amazed that this is an occasion where it took me two full days to begin to laugh at myself, as I shall explain.

Unlike some others I have known (who were upset at reaching the age of thirty or even twenty - where I wasn't at all troubled by forty or fifty), I am not bothered by ageing - except in realising, with some genuine sorrow, that I've reached the point where I have forgotten more than I know. There could be a play I studied in depth, and I'd have to think twice before I even remembered the characters. I've forgotten my foreign languages to a point where I doubt I could say more than good morning in anything except English - and I might not even manage that until I had a double espresso. Of course, I can refresh my memory on many subjects, but those which I once knew to such an extent that their practise was nearly intuitive sadly have fled.

Last Saturday, I happily had been invited to a "Bach party," where various people who either sang or played instruments gathered to perform cantatas. (I realise that this is not everyone's idea of a good time - but how could I resist a chance to meet others who think it is indeed?) Now, anyone with a Master's in musicology hardly would be any stranger to Bach (who, indeed, is one of my favourite composers), and I actually recall conducting some of the cantatas a lifetime ago.

I haven't performed in years. Though I have no deficiencies in training (and know my voice wasn't 5% of what it once was), I'd forgotten how one loses a knack one hasn't used in ages. For example, when I was performing I could have 'jumped in' with sight reading Bach - one isn't even aware of that one is counting and so forth, because it's a part of one's every day life.

Well, we performed cantatas 1 and 4. The few instrumentalists there (a few oboe players, some violinists, a bass player, and two French horns) did such parts as they could, but there wasn't anything approaching a full ensemble. (One of the oboe players did the viola part, since there were no violas and he alone was comfortable with reading that odd clef.) I certainly am no stranger to Bach, but, after all these years, I hadn't really thought about how his vocal parts (typically for him in anything) are all contrapuntal, syncopated, fast in parts and so forth. With its being so many years, I just couldn't sight read that fast. I might have done better had there been a keyboard accompaniment, but of course what the instrumentalists played bore no relation to what we sang.

One other participant was a very confident type - she, with me and two other ladies, one of whom had to leave early, was 'the soprano section,' but she kept joining in with the altos or even tenor part (we had only one tenor and one bass) whenever the sopranos had free measures. At one point, I believe I made a mistake, and she started wildly waving at me - which I naturally found quite embarrassing. Overall, I felt I looked like a total fool - it probably seemed I didn't even know how to read music.

I tried a joint effort at the soprano solo. It was full of semi quavers at the slowest (and of course the instrumental part had no relation to the melody), and, though despite my lack of practise it was not beyond my vocal range, it flew all over creation, and I just couldn't keep up. In fact, I'll candidly admit that, even when I was performing, I would have had to practise such a solo for some time to 'get it right.' I'm a spinto, and fluttering around is not easy for a voice with a dark timbre - how I'd have loved to show off a bit back when I could...

I'm not suggesting that feeling like a well worn fool is the exclusive domain of musicians - it applies to just about all of us who, however well versed we are in a subject, have not had the opportunity to practise the art over many years. I'm surprised that it took me so long to see the humour!

I well remember when I was a student. I knew people who were extremely talented, but others (in fact, those more likely to star in local companies!) who had confidence which often far outweighed their abilities. It occurs to me that, the more one does learn, the more one realises one knows little - but those who really don't know very much (the proverbial big fish in little ponds being a prime example) can hold their heads high seeing themselves as authorities.

There were others there who didn't sound any better than I did, so why I was so timid probably has to do with, first, knowing I was very good once upon a time and not wishing to be pathetic and, perhaps more so, being all too aware of just how much I have forgotten. The astute among you may have noticed that I cannot even remember in which 'odd clef' the viola plays... and this though I used to play the viola (terribly, I'll admit) in the string ensemble. (There are many things one must do when one studies music at university level...) I cannot even remember which instruments 'don't sound in C,' or how one must transpose orchestral scores - though I did it many times in orchestration assignments. In a way, I envy those who realise, only when they are playing French horn and something sounds strange, that they have the score for the wrong instrument (not unusual if there are few instruments and two horns, so one is 'faking' a totally different instrument just to fill in.) I genuinely envy anyone who could play a viola part on an oboe and not even blush when, at one point, he forgot he was using 'that odd clef' and sounded a bit like Ravi Shankar in a renaissance ensemble.

...I hope I have the chance to attend again... But I'll be forgiven for hoping it's a piece I know through and through... as I once did Bach cantatas. :)

If you are the Son of God...

The link in the title is to a previous post of mine entitled Peasant, Nuisance, Nobody - a description which, uncharacteristically, I borrowed from John Dominic Crossan, because he did have a point. That these terms apply equally well to me as to our Saviour is purely coincidental.

I'm afraid I am rather irritable at the moment (more so than as always), because I cannot shake a flu I've been fighting for the past few weeks. It was one of those strains which brought chills, shivers, aches, and then, just as that seemed to be improving, catarrh which is making me almost (though not quite) glad that I am not singing anywhere at the moment. One of the worst parts is stumbling weak and weary - I find that, halfway through anything, my head is bobbing. Fortunately, I did get to the Ash Wednesday liturgy, which was glorious. It's almost worth being a sinner to hear that Allegri Miserere. (I did laugh when someone who came in asked an usher where one goes 'just to get ashed,' and laughed the louder later when a friend more versed in slang told me that those who 'get ashed' usually do so at a pub.) I made the most of the day, happily stumbling on some very cheap, canned escargots which were quite delightful paired with garlic butter, mushrooms, and spinach. Still, I am rather sad because, if the weather tomorrow is anything to match the weatherman's predictions, I probably will not be able to chance going out to the Eucharist - I'm not about to have a relapse of any earlier stages of this flu.

Before I begin the next section, I shall mention, for the benefit of my more sensitive readers (some of whom are fine with saying "Blessed be Jesus Christ, True God and True Man" at Benediction, but who become uneasy when Jesus is mentioned as a man... and here I mean 'as fully human,' since I'm too damned tired to argue with those who dislike 'sexist language'), that there is not the least question in my mind that Jesus is divine, Second Person of the Trinity, the Logos, the Lord of the Universe and the Redeemer of the world - and I'm not suggesting there was any time during his short earthly life that this was not true. (I also am too tired now to explain the difference between my saying 'timeless' where some of you may prefer 'everlasting' ... take your pick.) Yet I do believe that, in fully assuming humanity, Jesus accepted the same limitations as would be in your life or mine. I believe, with many orthodox scholars today, that Jesus of Nazareth indeed grew in knowledge of his own identity and his unique relationship to the Father - even if I like imagery of cherry trees bowing down at his command when he was still in the womb.

I believe that this Sunday's gospel deals with Jesus' temptations in the desert. All of us have heard that passage (and sermons on the topic) many times - and it can take a moment to step outside the bounds which familiarity can bring and see how Jesus was facing his full identity and mission at this point. As most of us constantly experience (though, sadly, we sin where He did not), he was tempted to idolatry, despair, a sense of futility, fear of his prophetic vocation, a wish for and display of power.

If I may be permitted to indulge my playful, literary side for a moment, I always do smile a bit at Jesus' having been shown the kingdoms of this world. Yes, I know my history, and am not suggesting that the Almighty accomplished this by reaching down and pushing a button (...hardly an option considering he created us with free will..), but it never ceases to amaze me that, within a very short time after the death and resurrection of this 'peasant, nuisance nobody,' vast, powerful kingdoms and empires would have an astonishing number of Christians. Greek Fathers would be applying philosophy to the great theology of Israel (which, of course, was never a major world power, let alone an empire.) Antioch, Alexandria, Ephesus, Gaul - incredible. I can very easily picture Satan taunting Jesus with, "You can't seriously expect that Egyptians will ever go for any of that business about your being equal to your Father? Who is going to ponder that Trinity business - the Greeks!? And wouldn't it be laughable to imagine that your message is ever going to have any effect in Rome?" Much as these nations would remain largely pagan for quite some time, they equally were Christian strongholds within a few centuries or less - a blink in the eye of history.

I've been blessed with a most insightful spiritual director, and am fairly confident that he would not mind my sharing a few ideas he has taught me (again, and again, and again... one of these days, I just might get it...) Jesus' own lifetime mission was to Israel, but his apostles would carry his message to those who often had worshipped the old gods. The evil one and the old gods have only the existence we create for them - they are born of the envy, frustration, fear and rage which we generate by our fascination with things others seem to have which we do not perceive ourselves as having. Idolatry is grandiose ingratitude - denial that we have enough, or that God loves us.

My director also introduced me to the brilliant works of James Alison, who reminds us that Jesus became the scapegoat to undo the power of scapegoating as the religious mechanism it was in the old religions - and to expose the power of powerlessness on the Cross.

I may get back to this once I stop needing to huddle under blankets as these shivers recur... but I'll leave you with a little thought. Jesus' temptations were to a form of idolatry. It's fortunate he left us with that sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving - because we all learn, every day, that those two elements are our only defence against creating 'old gods' of our own.

That Monkey's Paw keeps scratching me!

My readers must be forewarned that this post will be nothing approaching inspirational. I'm just laughing at myself a bit - perhaps to show solidarity with others who have similar conflicts (though they might be less prone to admit this.)

As my 'regulars' know, I have great admiration for those with trusting, childlike faith. I've often mentioned how my mother turned to the Infant of Prague (from whom she received the most amazing results), Saint Gerard (ditto), and Saint Anthony (despite that she scolded him regularly if he did not come through on time.) For Chip, the heavenly friends were a supportive extended family. Much as one would on earth, one would go to whomever was the best connected for needs in a particular area. (That the Infant of Prague was Jesus, therefore Logos, Second Person of the Trinity, and so forth wasn't always on her mind. For some reason, this aspect of Him was more accessible - perhaps because he was an adorable little child here, not a cheeky kid of twelve in the temple who let his parents worry, nor a radical preacher whose mother always had to fear his fate, nor a tortured Christus.)

I may as well admit this - intercessory prayer (or that of petition, since I'm so pedantic that I cannot refrain from noting the difference) rather frightens me. Part of it, of course, is the 'guilt trip' attitude that we leftover 1960s liberals cannot quite shake. (May I never 'shake' the ideals - but the 'here I am praying for this or that when someone is starving in Bangladesh' guilt, the more because I picture the radical Jesus smacking me, is one of which I'd gladly be rid.) The other part is that I am hopelessly superstitious, as I revealed a few years back in my post about the Evil Eye.

Considering how petitions are a constant part of the liturgy, and how many great saints devoted much time to intercessory prayer, I am at a loss to describe why asking for anything gives me the uneasy fear that I'm 'casting a spell' - and that it shall backfire. Though it has been years since I read this story, I remember enough of "The Monkey's Paw" to see that such dark thoughts as that tale expressed cloud my petitions. That story begins with a family in need asking for money - and getting it through their son's violent (accidental) death. It ends with their wishing on the magical paw that their son return to them... and his returning in quite a horrid condition, to say the least.

Some years ago, one of my cousins (whose name happens to be Theresa) sent me a novena to Saint Thérèse. It was of the 'say it for five hours on five days' variety - for those with darkness of thought such as mine (which oddly often is another side of those of us most prone to wit and laughter!), I suppose the 'five times five times five' seemed vaguely like a spell. (Why this never worried me when my mother said the novena to the Infant nine times, once each hour, remains unknown.) Well, there was a very important petition that I had at the time, and indeed I said that novena, just as it was published, and much as that goes against my usual grain. On the fifth day, I had something happen which was perhaps the most painful experience of my life up to that time. (I'm not alone - someone else I knew found that, on the fifth day, her child, for whom she had been praying, died. I don't mean the novena caused it, of course, but let's just say that I doubt either one of us would repeat the process.)

I'll admit that, just this morning, a dear friend of mine (easily the loveliest lady on earth) sent me a 'make a wish, say this prayer, then forward it to twelve others.' I'll equally admit, and this most painfully for someone who has studied so much logic, that I did so. But you can imagine my distress making that wish! Do I wish for some unexpected money, with cash so tight? (I remembered the monkey's paw and decided against that one... I have no family members left and no one's death will put money in my pocket, as in that gruesome story, but Lord only knows what horrors might arise...) I am utterly frustrated by the plateau in my weight loss, which is upsetting me to no end, but dare I wish for weight loss, when that could mean either a famine, greater poverty, or cancer? No, best not try that one. I finally wished to be free of a most distracting 'principal defect' of mine. I'm already fearful of what horrid thing might happen to make that come about... I hope I don't end up comatose or something...

I hope none of you are taking this too literally! But, for all that I remember a line from somewhere about how a Father doesn't give one a snake when one asks for a fish, how the goblins from childhood can haunt us! The email I received said to 'watch what happens on the fourth day' - oh, heavens, it is Friday... the 13th...

The oddest part is that the prayer I was sent is perfectly charming - so much so that I'll share it here.

May today bring you peace within. May you trust that you are exactly where you are meant to be. May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith in yourself and others. May you use the gifts that you have received, and pass on the love that has been given to you. May you be content with yourself just the way you are. Let this knowledge settle into your bones, and allow your soul the freedom to sing, dance, praise and love. It is there for each and every one of us.

I'm not about to speculate about knowledge settling into my bones... the more because I'm not only superstitious but arthritic, and inclined to the poetic while thinking certain means of expression are a bit clumsy. Yet I definitely would adopt 'sing, dance, pray, and love' as a motto were I inclined to such things (and even though no one would ever care to see me dance... though they might not mind, even now, hearing me sing...)

Blast all those stories I heard in my childhood, supposed to be inspirational! Every gift one had was sacrificed - and then one thanked God, in most syrupy terms, for humility. Parents came to huge conversion, if not sanctity, when a child was murdered. "I got nothing that I asked for, yet everything I hoped for..." prayers were popular.

Where I got the bizarre idea that prayers were something like spells is beyond me! But the 'thy will be done' (much less 'not as I will' in Gethsemane - though here I'm referring to the obligatory 'but thy will be done' with which one had to end all prayers, not to the Paternoster) always had an undertone of 'don't be offended if I asked something out of accord with Your will... and, after all, when does anyone speak of God's will to mean anything good or happy?'

No one in my family feared God, as far as I know. But they never mentioned anything good (health, what little we could call wealth, good looks, whatever) without making the sign against the evil eye. It wasn't that God would snatch the good away - for peasants, it certainly isn't God who causes poverty, illness, or anything else with which one must deal (even if those indirectly responsible might have had church ties... they were not unknown to own the lands tenant farmers worked.) It was the envy of others one must fear.

Perhaps this pathetic post will reassure others that those of us who have a passion for theology are no less prone to spiritual paranoia than anyone else who grew in faith but has a part of himself which never grew up. That's most of us...

On how to be a pompous windbag

Caught your attention, did I not? Sorry - if anyone really wishes to be such, I'm afraid I cannot give much instruction. But I read a delicious item today which had me laughing aloud. I had received an email about a book discussion, for which the text was Envy by Joseph Epstein. It seemed vaguely familiar, and I looked it up on Amazon. On that site, it is possible for people to construct 'Listmania' collections of books on any topic. I laughed at a Listmania list which appeared on the page, entitled "Be a pompous windbag: how to pose as an intellectual."

I indeed have a strong intellectual side (and would imagine that, if anyone visits this blog more than once, they also have the affliction), and it tends to mean that one is so analytical that one cannot see the obvious. I know I could use a good dose of Ockham's razor on many occasions, because I am so caught up in looking for profound and hidden reasons for everything that I'll not see that much in this world is all too simple. I'm in outer space without realising it in the least. As a simple example, when a friend of mine, Doris, was wearing a necklace with charms commemorating various occasions in her children's lives, when I saw one charm was a capital D, I asked "500 what? What does the D stand for?" It would not enter my mind that, rather than being a Roman numeral, it stood for "Doris."

Still, if I ever accomplished anything, it was definitely a 'tortoise and hare' situation. I'm capable of insight, but it takes me much time to absorb and express the concepts. I never was an outstanding student - the best I could hope for was 'you're well read.' (That is close cousin to being called 'attractive,' which, for anyone under forty, means 'you are certainly not pretty.')

I'm too shy to be a windbag, and I don't know that it is possible to be pompous when one comes from pure peasant stock. My mother's family, artisans (hatters and shoemakers, not painters of the Sistine chapel) with some taste for aspiring to the 'refined' (in Teora, being something akin to nobility meant owning two chickens), may have given me a small inclination towards the regal. But my dad's crowd were honest, totally pragmatic, very earthy creatures who would have seen me as purely ornamental in my interests. They were pure terra firma - and I'm sure I'll be forgiven for the worst pun of my life in adding 'the more firma the less terra.'

It's about 35 years since my university days began. Most of our professors were very intellectual but very few were pompous. I don't recall most of the students even aspiring to seem intellectual - no pomposity epidemic there. But I'm smiling remembering the few who probably see themselves, with hindsight today, as having been at least minor bags of wind.

Many people at that college were studying education - and some were embracing theories which made it seem that all teaching and 'parenting' prior to around 1973 was all wrong, and now suddenly replaced by innovative perfection. (I'm by no means suggesting that, in this or any category, this was true of most students. I'm speaking only of those who applied for the windbag award.) They definitely over-rated the huge importance they thought they would have in forming the children they taught. Windbags of the day saw revolutionary strides in such approaches as teaching children to read with a contrived phonetic alphabet, which would give them unprecedented confidence and 'self esteem.' (The result, when such methods actually were tried in schools, was that kids had to learn to read twice - first in the make believe alphabet and then in English - and that they'd never, ever learn to spell.)

The general windbags all seemed to be quoting from Siddhartha, or from the dreadful but highly 'revolutionary' Your Erroneous Zones. The theory behind the latter was that guilt and worry were 'useless emotions' of which one must be free - it struck no one at the time that those who are completely free of guilt and worry are sociopaths. There also was the bullying 'assertiveness training,' which boiled down to "I'll get what I want at any cost - I'll treat everyone in a bullying fashion - and, if I throw you off a cliff, you chose to feel broken." The peace and love generation indeed did tend to see it as huge progress to become utter bastards.

Those interested in theology all seemed to be quoting Teilhard de Chardin. (I indeed loved theology, but was too afraid of looking stupid to admit, then, that I didn't understand Teilhard in the least. I still don't.) It was an era I found exciting because of my passion for liturgy (this was a time of what I really thought would be wonderful liturgical reform... I must have been drinking perfume...) The windbags who complained most about liturgy were sad that the Church had 'sacramentalised, not evangelised.' Tortoise that I am, I was slow to fully grasp that those who see worship and sacraments as opposed to spreading the gospel are not precisely those who should be involved in liturgy...

The history windbags had read a revisionist volume and now knew that every historian for five centuries had been dead wrong. Music windbags had discovered that some obscure composer, long forgotten, had really written the works attributed to some famous one - and would miss no opportunity to work in a reference to "Smith's Moonlight Sonata."

Those who were very 'progressive' about religion wanted to get back to 'the beginnings.' Now, that is not such a bad idea in itself, but this seemed to entail not only huge (and often weird) speculation about 'the beginnings', if not downright disregard for the history, but to speak endlessly of progress while requiring that (if something happened 7 centuries ago) one ignore any developments in the particular area since.

Of course, progress was popular in other windbag varieties. I love John Henry Newman, and allow for his being as infected with 19th century optimism (which it took two wars to cure) as I am with 20th century cynicism. But I was bored to death with hearing "to become perfect is to have changed often," as if that canonised any change for the sake of change. Newman made an excellent point - but even then I was tempted to remind the others that Hitler and Stalin started out in baptismal innocence and changed often...

I must get back to the Amazon site, and see if I can thank the author of that Listmania collection for the best laugh I've had since the mercury dropped below freezing. Even with all these 1970s reminiscences, I'll refrain (now that we seem to be in some new Ice Age and salt is getting scarce...) from saying anything such as 'stay cool.'

A word on the topic of ethics

Neither ethics nor moral theology are areas which I have pursued in great depth, though there are elements which I find most interesting. Heaven knows they are incredibly difficult areas to pursue, and I do not envy moral theologians (or even confessors!) As well, and as I've mentioned in innumerable other posts about philosophical matters, there can be a huge gap between philosophical arguments and pastoral approaches.

I attended a talk yesterday, which was the beginning of a series on Christian ethics. The presenter is a Thomist - and Thomistic terminology can be highly confusing. A young man who asked a question at the end raised an interesting point - whether we have free will at all, or if all is predetermined. Where those of us grounded in Thomas Aquinas see free will as part of being created in God's image and likeness (Thomas was defending omnipotence and omniscience, and the horribly complex idea of simplicity, while seeking to emphasise that evil is not incompatible with a God who acts in creation), certain Christian thought (for example, Calvin) indeed makes it seem that all is predetermined. (I'll not even give room here to B. F. Skinner - I do not happen to be a rat in a maze.) That makes evil all the greater a problem! I'm sorry that question came right at the end - because the presenter had to answer quickly, mentioned that God makes me do what I do (I imagine in holding all things in existence) and his answer could be puzzling, because he didn't have time to mention that Thomas was trying to underline that all creation is good - Thomas sees evil as a lack of fulfilment of our potential, not as evil being created by God - and that God is responsible for creation in the sense that he holds it in being, not that he gave Eichmann a push at the concentration camps.

Coincidentally, I have been studying ethics in more depth recently. This particular set of notes comes from a book on ethics by Richard Gula, called "Reason Informed by Faith."

• God is the fullness of being. His actions are good as flowing from the divine nature, which is love.


• All other forms of goodness are derived from this - dependent on the prior goodness of God.


• Responding to God is our moral obligation, because establishing anything other than God as the centre of value is idolatrous. There is a necessity of ongoing discernment to discover ways most responsive to God.



• "Morality... means to make 'customary'... to ritualise, in the actions of our lives, the experiences we have of knowing and being loved by God. In this sense, the moral life is like worship. It is a response to an experience of God. The moral life has a different quality when an awareness of God is lost; moral actions become 'works' of moral rightness rather than grateful responses to the goodness of God; moral deliberation becomes a computer-like problem solving rather than prayerful discernment of what God enables or requires." God is Creator. We, as created in God's image, are stewards of creation. Divine beneficence calls forth our gratitude, the pivotal virtue of the moral life.

I found Gula's emphasis to be very good, because he stresses that God is love and perfectly self-giving, and that the Trinity shows that 'to be' is to be in relationship.

I think it can be very dangerous to think that God causes everything that happens, in any way. Thomas's defence, based on defending omnipotence, can be a pastoral disaster!

Of course, there are plenty of Catholics who give short shrift to Calvin, but would spend much time debating whether omniscience is incompatible with free will. I'll save that for another day - since the Franciscan William of Ockham opposes Thomas on that one, and I want to give William his due. (I can set forth both their positions. Making sense of them is another story...)

Perhaps I'm no authority on ethics, but I loved the quotation from Richard Gula - the only change I would make is eliminating 'like' and making the sentence read, "The moral life is worship."

Postscript about those whose guitars should have been sacrificed

When I write twice in a day, one can tell I'm really sick of winter.... :)

Heavens, do I have major intellectual and aesthetic pollution today... because I have a variety of utterly dreadful songs (somehow, just to give them the distinction of 'hymn' seems blasphemous) in my mind as a result of an unfortunate accident. I was at a library this week, doing some research about religious themes as depicted in contemporary literature, and one book was about how nuns have been presented (not only in literary treatment per se, but in the ridiculous pictures we used to see in magazines of the 1950s-60s, where it seemed all nuns were perpetually giggling and eating the poor man's version of Knickerbocker Glory - in the days when nuns hoped for more modern knickers and had a totally distorted version of glory.)

One illustration in the book was of a record album cover, featuring Medical Mission Sisters. (I'd heard the blasted tunes many times, having had the bad fortune to have a stint teaching little children. Maybe only those in that situation had full exposure to this rot, as I sincerely hope.) I'd had no idea that the songs were produced by a religious community, but just seeing the titles brought back memories of dreadful liturgies, back when 'making the children think it was their liturgy' was all the rage.

Some of you are young, many lifelong Anglicans, so I may not receive sufficient sympathy... but what other 'ancients' here remember such gems as these? (I'd forgotten them for forty years...) Lyrics such as these, like 'free verse' popular during the era, or musical settings by Don McLean, leave one wondering if they are too deep for the average individual to comprehend, or if they mean nothing at all and are merely allowing the composer to laugh all the way to the bank.

"Spirit of God in the clear running water,
Flowing to greatness the trees on the hill.
Spirit of God in the finger of morning,
Fill the earth, bring it to birth, and blow where you will.
Blow, blow, blow till I be but breath of the Spirit blowing in me."

Or how about this one?

"It's a long road to freedom,
Winding, steep and high,
But if you walk in love with the wind on your wings,
And cover the earth with the songs you sing,
The miles fly by.

I walked one morning by the sea,
And all the waves reached out to me,
I took their tears, then let them be."

I did not understand those lyrics then, and don't now. I suppose I'm admitting to stupidity or a lack of religious sensitivity.

There also was the unforgettable "Joy is Like the Rain," not to be confused with the Gregory Norbet "masterpiece" by the same title:

"I see raindrops on my window,
Joy is like the rain..."

I couldn't figure out if the original authors of these gems were aged 5 or merely hadn't taken their bipolar medication.

Remember "Hear, O Lord"? I suppose I just am uncomfortable with misplaced modifiers, but take a good look at these lyrics: "every night, before I sleep, I pray my soul to take - or else I pray that loneliness is gone when I awake." Loneliness may be hard to take, but it does seem a strange prayer: "kill me tonight if I'll be lonely tomorrow."

I have no idea why - maybe that record album cover contained this gem, though I'm uncertain. But at least I think it has been some time since anyone was subjected to:

"I cannot come! (Aside: today kids would think it was a reference to orgasm.)
I cannot come to the banquet,
Don't bother me now,
I've married a wife,
I've bought me a cow,
And I have fields and commitments
That cost a pretty sum
Please hold me excused
I cannot come."

That's on my mind today... a pathetic situation. Oddly enough, I think I only actually heard that song performed (at a youth mass, of course) once, many years ago. Whichever music is worst tends to be that which most enduringly affects some part of one's brain in which it becomes an enduring memory.

As an aside, I shall admit that there are some musically dreadful songs for which I either have some affection or which I consented to play at liturgies now and then, because they brought back memories or were cherished by many people. A few years ago, there was an Internet poll where Roman Catholics were invited to share the 'what and why' of their very favourite hymns. I was expecting either the great or the sentimental, yet the winner was "Be Not Afraid." (For the record, this song is of far better quality than those I've referenced previously. I'm just surprised at the reasons for the vote.) The comments section showed that the reason it was first on the list was that people remembered it from "Dead Man Walking."

I love Gregory Peck and A. J. Cronin, and shall confess that, when I watched a video of "Keys of the Kingdom" (and this though the film in no way does the book justice), when the children sang "Come, Holy Ghost" because it was main character Father Chisholm's favourite hymn, I had that in my mind for days.

I'm remembering how many people (including me - I can still remember hearing "Jesus, Food of Angels," at my first communion, though I doubt I've heard it since) connect a favourite song to a memory. People who haven't been to church in 30 years, but who have fond memories of May crowning ceremonies, can be brought near tears by "Bring Flowers of the Fairest." I remember when some people at a parish where I served asked me when I would include, "Good-night, Sweet Jesus," since they fondly remembered its being used at the end of evening novenas. I refrained from saying "over my dead body" only because, were I to meet an untimely end, I feared they'd play it at my funeral.

Popular books on religious themes - a trivial post :)

Bear with me, blogger pals. :) Today is one of those days when I am close to cursing the very technology I normally find enriching. For example, need I remind any of you how tiring it can be, when one is on 'automatic payment' with a vendor, and is being hit with unprocessed payments and late fees... though clearly they had the account information the last time a payment went through, and nothing has changed? Internet forums can be highly enriching, but I often muse that the saddest part is that 'loud mouths' and others who have little to contribute but do so in a bullying fashion now have an entire world to abuse... and people must like it, because they return. Remember when there was something resembling 'customer service' out there, with people who were well trained? It would seem to me, considering all those dreadful years I spent with telecommunications, that my reporting a problem with service (complete with details and diagnostics - hardly your typical home customer), would lead to a response other than 'we can only check if you have a dial tone.' What about when one wishes to order something or remedy a problem, needs to mention a particular consideration or report a problem, and is either sent an email linking to an FAQ which has nothing whatever to do with the difficulty, or is placed 'on hold' with repeated messages in one's ear about looking at the blasted FAQ which was of no value in the first place?

Yes, it is one of my irritable days. Winter is always the worst time of year for me - I think my brain freezes, and my natural warmth doesn't keep my chilly (figurative) side from predominating. So, here I am, with little of any value to contribute, but utterly frustrated because I'm unable to focus enough to produce things which are of value for the moment.

I review books for Amazon, a number of which I receive in 'pre publication' form. A number of them (surprise!) are on religious topics - though that covers a wide scope. It appears, and I say this with dismay, that the same people who haunt the Internet forum where they can play at being mentally ill (or display that indeed they are... though the ones who are remain unaware and think themselves enlightened) must enjoy purchasing books which could be sub-titled "Chronicle of one who was and is totally crackers but can manage to blame it on a religious upbringing." (I don't know which is worse - this or "I was and am a nut case but am enlightened since I 'got religion.'")

One book which I recently reviewed was written by a comedienne (whose words admittedly are wickedly funny, though the content is largely tragic) who apparently sees having obsessive compulsive disorders (cutting her arms, counting telephone poles, needing to regularly wash the walls) as resulting from having been a Jehovah's Witness. Another, written by a former RC Sister who admits to being bipolar but loved the flattery and attention when (at least in her mind) men all were trying to chat her up, would make it appear Catholicism was to blame.

I am not suggesting that many devout Christians (or Jews, or Muslims, or Buddhists - though that last might not use the term devout), who were extraordinary or even saintly, might not have been a bit bent - neither Francis of Assisi nor Catherine of Siena, just to name the two who first come to mind, would have passed psychological tests, and I thank divine providence that there were no shrinks then to make them doubt their own integrity or think awe-inspiring love was a pathology. Nor would I question that some 'nuts get religion,' considering I heard, on two occasions in the past, of rather bizarre characters, both of whom thought they were the pope. But what is the attraction for reading of people who have illnesses that are quite tragic, as if this were the result of belief?

There have been some excellent, even brilliant, works of biography or literature on religious topics. For example, just to mention one that is fairly recent, Umberto Eco's "The Name of the Rose" was a superb mixture of humour, logic, history, and detective story. I think I would enjoy having tea with many of Trollope's characters, even if, in their time or place, were I written into a novel it would have to lean more towards Dickens. There also are outstanding films, whether adaptations of history or fictional treatments of truths, in the religious genre. Perhaps the ones I find just as trying as the 'let me out of my straitjacket and I'll tell of my religious upbringing' are those which were totally silly.

I sometimes will watch films for pure relaxation, and, of all things, I saw that "The Singing Nun" was on the television a few days ago. I remember well when the real Singing Nun was a one-hit wonder with Dominique (it is unfortunate that her life ended very tragically, with a suicide during the 1980s.) A few of her songs were quite lovely ("Beyond the Stars" would qualify) - and the words to "Dominique" are a nice prayer, though the accompaniment and arrangements are beyond basic, and she was not a gifted singer.

The film version, based on Sr Luc Gabriel's music, not her life history, was quite a sensation in its day. I suppose that, in 1966 when 'updating' was first on the agenda, a nun going about on a motor scooter, or being crushed to hear a rock version of her song as she passes a local discotheque, seemed intensely relevant. (Lots of things were relevant in those days - Planet of the Apes was huge social commentary, for example. I once commented on the "Singing Nun" film to the effect that I'd call it "Peanuts Goes to the Vatican," except that Charles Schulz's comic strip had more depth.) Seeing this film again made it seem sheer camp. Even the great Greer Garson had such horrible dialogue that she couldn't redeem it - and Ricardo Montalban, whom I think was not only very handsome but the utter soul of style, hardly rises above the cartoon character guise. I never cared for Debbie Reynolds (even if her singing was somewhat better than Sr Luc Gabriel's), but her character was so exaggerated (and over-acted) that a film which I suppose was to have shown great depth is unintentionally hilarious. About the only redeeming factor was the vague theme that one new to religious service often has great zeal and no prudence (and should be careful about waving to either giraffes or boat captains, especially when she is riding a scooter and can whack into an innocent vendor's horse, or driving a Jeep and likely to have to watch the curves on the dusty Congo roads.)

I shall add, however, that I think it best for viewers to have some, vague idea that "Dominique" was written about a saint of whom you must have heard (though the French words are rather a finer prayer than the English version in this film)... not about a poor man's gamin, aged four perhaps, who enchants Sister when he kicks her in the shin. His sister, posing nude to earn money to support Dom and his low-life father, does reach a moment of redemption when Sister Anne gives her the guitar... and turns aside from worldliness. And here I thought music was a prime way in which to make a joyful noise...

Hold it... cancel that... there's 'joyful' and there is 'noise,' and the latter sometimes masquerades for music. When I recall what sort of liturgical music was being cranked out in 1966 and beyond, perhaps we would have been better off if some people had given their guitars away to the poor and devoted more time to dodging giraffes...

Quick thoughts on the Conversion of Saint Paul

My seasoned readers are well aware that my definition of 'quick' tends to be 'I cannot write a book - or a shelf of books - on the topic, nor even a dissertation - so here are a few things which come to mind.' New readers must be cautioned that this does not mean I'm writing two sentences.

Winter is dreadful, is it not? My brain seems to be out to lunch, and I'm very tired of it's seeming as if it were night all of the time, shivering even in the heavy coat, having chapped skin, and wearing trousers so much. I haven't been quite up to writing much that is useful, but wanted to drop a line just to keep in shape. My only comfort this dreadful season is that at least we'll all have a break from anyone's preaching about global warming.

Few of us shall have such dramatic conversions as did Saul of Tarsus - but what a providential conversion this would be. Indeed, I could write half a shelf of books about Paul - and about conflicts in the early church, such as how Paul whacked Peter at the first ecumenical council. My idealistic generation, who seemed to think that singing "they'll know we are Christians by our love" would return us to a blissful tenderness of the first century should have read Paul's epistles with a little more critical sense. (Discernment was unthinkable at the time, as I recall... my time, not Paul's, though it wasn't too plentiful in his time, either.) It was no peace and love fest in the early days, either.

Paul must have been quite a difficult character, but, naturally, I especially cherish him because he was the strength of the Gentile mission. There were many debates in the early Church - indeed, Christ's gospel should extend to all of the earth, but is the Gentile mission on a level with that of the Church in Jerusalem? In Ephesus, it is possible that (reading the letters of John), many of the conflicts about love and hating one's brother are not abstract speculations, but have to do with conflicts between Johannine and Pauline Christians. (Yes, it's true I love reading John more than Paul... but I'd praise Paul's pastoral work on any occasion. I'd also caution 21st century readers to recall that nearly all of Paul's writings were addressing specific pastoral difficulties.)

Lord, I'm getting nowhere today! :) Well, until my brain thaws, probably around Holy Week, I need to lean on a few great scholars. I was consulting some notes I had, from Jerome Murphy-O'Connor's "Paul: A Critical Life," since he is one of my favourite scripture scholars. Perhaps one section, which has to do with not only the old chestnut of Paul and the Law (...no sarcasm there... none of us found that essay easy to write, and we all felt stupid because every divinity student in history had to write it...), but with very apt points we can remember in any era. He treats in particular of the letter to the Romans (without dwelling on what immediately struck me... does any sermon in history not have some reference to collections?)

Anyway, here is Jerome (in summary)He argues cleverly, regarding Jewish attitudes towards the Law, that ‘the human mind instinctively simplifies.’

• Lip service was paid to the fundamental concept of gratuitous grace in election, but, in practise, attention was concentrated on observance of the commandments. (I see this as the clearest explanation yet! Rather than other views I have seen, one in which the law is a distraction because, in practise, it denies the free gift of divine grace makes great sense.)



• One false, inherited value: attitude towards the Law which distorted its true purpose. Fundamental in Jewish thought is a belief in their election by a divine, gratuitous act.


• Membership in the covenant was necessary to salvation. God’s giving of the law established the covenant. Tricky point for Jewish theologians: precise relationship of divine initiative and human response.


• If disobedience meant damnation, it seems logical (given the tendency to simplify!) that obedience wins salvation.


• A religion of grace expressed in covenant form (in the popular imagination, if not in theological dissertations) becomes one of meritorious achievement.


• Paul’s concerns: less the idea that there could be an approach to the law of effectively ‘buying salvation’ than the inversion of values consequent on the importance attached to obedience and law.


• Murphy-O'Connor illustrates, from rabbinical stories, how God 'failed to realise that, once He’d given the Law, it was out of his hands. Only the voice of rabbis counted.'“Jewish theological thought debated points of law, not mysteries of grace.”


• Murphy-O'Connor comments that the Law,“Left no real space for God, grace, or faith – only for obedience.”

‘In order to ensure that the gracious gift of God, in Jesus Christ, would retain its primacy in practise, Paul had to insist it was irrelevant for all believers.” Fundamental objection: Law, once admitted, inevitably created an attitude which monopolised the religious perspective.Authentic response to God’s grace is in the self-sacrifice of Jesus Christ –in no way anticipated by the Law.Once the goal of the Law was achieved in Jesus Christ, the means thereto (the Law) had no raison d’être.

Close the quotes... and, if this wise gentleman is in the neighbourhood, or I happen to be in Jerusalem, I must meet him for a pint. I have a feeling we'd agree on many points... and, if I don't have his knowledge, indeed I do have the same type of humour. I leave these wonderful quotes to ponder. (And, if you wish to have a better laugh still, with more insights, obtain a copy of the same book and see what he has to say about Corinth.)

A little word about indulgences

No - here I'm not doing public penance for having had a slice of cake on my birthday. :) As it happened, last Sunday I heard an Anglican acquaintance refer to how "Roman Catholics can still buy Masses to get people out of purgatory." I'm not faulting her - I fear that there indeed are RCs who think that is precisely the case, rather than seeing, for example, how the Eucharist makes present Jesus' Incarnation to the benefit of the Church (in this life or the next) and so forth. Yet no one who has delved into matters medieval to the extent tow which I have can ignore the distortion of the concept of indulgences which led to various blessings and shortcomings in the Middle Ages. (Indeed, the abuses of the ideas of indulgences which Martin Luther rightly criticised were not remedied until the reforms of the Council of Trent - though, throughout the Middle Ages and probably till this day in some circles, valid pious practises too often were and are used as if they were magic.

I just may get around to writing an essay for the site on the history of concepts of purgatory during the Middle Ages. Though the doctrine itself merely admits to possible purification after we die (and implicitly allows for that we await the general resurrection / parousia - our death alone is not fulfilment), by the medieval period there were massive controversies about Church authority and its extent. This speculation included whether the Church Militant (on earth) had authority over the Church Suffering (those in purgatory) - I daresay some of the medieval and renaissance popes would have enjoyed authority over the Church Triumphant (in heaven), but there was no profit to be made from seeking that. Consequently, over the centuries a very elaborate judicial system, involving pardons, remittance of punishment and the like arose - unique in that it was exercised in a jurisdiction which, theologically, is not a 'place' at all, and involved authority over those already dead.

Initially (in the early centuries of the church), indulgences were allowances for lesser penances for those (very much alive) who had been guilty of grave public sins. Sacramental confession as we know it today, or as it would have been known by the 13th century (when it was obligatory for all by decree of the Lateran Council in 1215), did not exist in this form in the earliest centuries. (There also were huge debates over whether those before the ecclesiastical courts could be considered members of a holy Church - not being holy. That's another topic for another day, though it's fun to think of such a standard being applied to the early modern papacy...) Those serving public penance were guilty of crimes such as apostasy - bishops who sacrificed to pagan gods, for example. The early penances were very severe, and could span years or the remainder of one's life. (Human nature has not changed. This was lessened later, because, rather than leading to a crop of holy saints, it led to people not returning to the Church at all, or putting off repentance to their death beds.)

It was only centuries later that the Franciscan Pope Sixtus extended indulgences to the dead. However, the general thinking (in an era when, regrettably, discussions of grace made it seem rather like a substance, and the truth of how the entire Church benefits or grieves for its members good and evil was often ignored for a concept of merit that made it seem like a giant cash machine) was the the dead who were in purgatory could no longer earn merit on their own behalf, for all that their salvation was assured. They needed to rely on the prayers (alms, good works, and so forth) of the living. I do not at all think that love ceases with death, or that those who went before us do not pray on our behalf, but I shudder to think of how those who may have been the only members of a large family to survive the Plague dealt with believing they had to atone for relatives' sins to alleviate the latter's suffering in purgatory.

Liturgical scholars undoubtedly would view the common worship of the Middle Ages as something of a nightmare. (It is no accident that sacramental theology, preaching, the training of the clergy, and ritual also had to be major concerns at Trent.) Private Masses for the intentions of those in purgatory became a norm, and the Eucharist was viewed as performed by the clergy on behalf of others, rather than as a truly common ritual. (Most people adored the Blessed Sacrament - but were fortunate to receive it once a year.) Some monasteries grew fat on trading on people's fear of purgatory, and monks who had no theological training were ordained purely to offer the many private Masses requested. At the time, relics could still be sold, donations be solicited not for the support of the church in itself but to 'buy' ways out of future suffering, and more.

I know my regulars must be weary of my speaking of how the main flaw in the western Church is an emphasis on atonement, but it does apply here. Prayer, alms, fasting and the like are very valuable spiritual practises - but ascetic practises intended to remove distractions and thereby foster intimacy with God can deteriorate when it seems we are appeasing an angry god. Charity for those living and dead certainly fits into theology and ecclesiology, but the image of a god who inflicts torments until those still on earth can manage atonement is tragic. The incredible, indeed unfathomable, richness of the Eucharist can be forgotten when the anamnesis is set aside to focus entirely on sin, crucifixion, forgiveness and reparation.

Even in my own younger days, there was excessive emphasis on purgatory and indulgences. As a simple example, and one which naturally first occurs to a Franciscan, the Stations of the Cross can be a wonderful meditation - yet this aspect could be lost if one focussed on that it had attached indulgences. Superstition - the 'chain prayer' approach - can slip in when the focus is on multiplying indulgences rather than praise and thanksgiving. When I was young, people still spoke of doing things to 'save souls' - in my feisty moments, I'd comment "give me seven days, and I'll create the cosmos, then." I'm not ready to define redemption, because all of our definitions are inadequate - but redemption is already accomplished in Christ, and we can and should offer thanksgiving for this.

There is much I can say about distortions of Thomas and Bonaventure's ideas later (though most friars were so caught up with caring for the Plague victims that there were few chances for successors to those great ones... and, on a less positive note, where Thomas stressed discernment more than heresy, the Inquisition was keeping friars a bit occupied as well.) I can even trace the confusing influences of William of Ockham - but I've gone on quite enough for today. I just want to say a tiny bit about the private Masses.

I'm well aware that many ordained in the Middle Ages could barely say Mass. (I'm saving another essay for the best part of medieval liturgy - it was a time when music flourished.) There were indeed monasteries and individuals who used the fear of purgatory to grow fat with wealth - and I often wonder if this played a part in Francis of Assisi's stress on poverty. But let us not ignore positive elements - and these came to my mind (I'll admit them even though, as a post-Dom Gregory Dix Christian, I blush to do so. Whether it's the 13th century or the time of Abraham I'm considering, I find it helpful to try to step out of my 21st century mould and try to view things from the perspective of those alive then. Those of us who lived long before or long afterwards could miss this easily.)

There may have been great charity and true service of the Church in the actions of many of those involved. Monks, whose primary vocation was prayer, had, in the private Masses, a form of devotion with boundless benefits for the entire Church (including the poorest - those in purgatory, totally helpless and dependent.) It is logical that, in using his time to offer Masses, thereby applying the benefits of Christ's sacrifice in persona Christi, generosity of spirit and awareness of an obligation, in charity, to pray for others is implicit. What action could have been more perfect, or of greater benefit, than the Eucharist?

Today, most would be inclined to see acts of reparation on behalf of others as faulty theology - contrast this with the notion of presenting petitions on behalf of others which was integral in a feudal society. Devotion to the Passion, which flowered in the Middle Ages, a period when devotion to Christ in his humanity was at a peak, would have stressed Jesus' aloneness at the time of his crucifixion - a rather solitary act, because he was betrayed, virtually abandoned, and, even to those present, the true meaning was certainly hidden. With the Mass seen mainly as a representation of Calvary (then and long afterwards), a private Mass would hardly seem incompatible with devotion. As an ascetic practise, offering Mass for one's own salvation, as was possible, shows some grasp of repentance, humility, amendment, and dependence on the merits of Christ. I can even see where the multitude of Masses could lead to an awareness of Christ's Incarnation and sacrifice as omnipresent.

It is unfortunate that much which could have had great richness too often could descend into fear, based on placating a god who demanded this (I didn't use the capital letter because I do not see that the true God ever had such intentions), or into magical, repetitive practises with no grasp of the underlying beauty.